Intellectual capital in the information era

Harazin, Piroska

Keywords: information era, intellectual capital, future, innovation

‘We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.’ Albert Einstein
The main goal of this paper is to present the findings of a secondary research to identify the characteristics of a performance assessment method suited to the information era and focusing on intellectual capital. A fundamental expectation for a system like this is that in addition to information about the past, it should take into consideration current and future possibilities, as well as perspectives other than financial aspects.
Another main goal of the paper is to outline how characteristics and assessment of the environment, as a capital component, may be examined in parallel with examining intellectual capital. Working towards these goals gave rise to additional questions which need further research. The conclusion, however, is that intellectual capital and the environment play a strategic role in the life of organisations. They must be evaluated using suitable tools for the related information to contribute to good organisational performance and support managerial decision-making. As a summary, organisations must take into account the following quotation from Laáb: ‘The upcoming information society will not focus on money any more. Either money will be sufficient or it will become unimportant because – seeing that consumption and profitable production become increasingly intertwined – management will principally rely on information and innovative intelligence. In the future economy, money will be just one component of the new central resource called information.’

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